At least 54 dead in suspected Boko Haram attack in Nigeria

It was last hit by a bomb at the end of July and there was a skirmish with suspected Boko Haram militants on the outskirts of the city in mid-August.

Extremists detonated 3 explosive devices in Maiduguri, a military official said Sunday. Casualties may continue to rise, he said.

But Abubakar Shekau, Boko Haram’s shadowy leader denied the group was a spent force, which describes the army claims as false in an audio recording published via social media yesterday.

Nigeria’s authorities have frequently downplayed the death toll from attacks in the insurgency, which has claimed at least 17,000 lives and forced more than two million from their homes since 2009.

He said, “I have just returned from my workshop and was trying to take my bath when we heard the first blast”.

Mallam Ali Babagana, a lucky survivor based in Ajilari told our Correspondent on the phone that the incident occurred at a popular telecommunication service point where many people gather to buy/sake GSM recharge cards and other petty businesses.

Sunday’s attack is the worst since President Muhammadu Buhari was sworn into power in May when he pledged to wipe out the militants in 18 months. “Your relations with foreign powers can not avail you”, Shekau says in the video, which is entitled, “Message to transgressors, disbelievers and polytheists”.

Military spokesman, Colonel Sani Kukasheka Usman, who disclosed the explosions, added, “the attacks signify [a] high level of desperation on the part of the Boko Haram terrorists”. The majority of the attacks have been in Borno state, of which Maiduguri is the capital.

Nigeria’s military said on Friday it had recaptured villages and rescued 90 people in a process that involved the “continuous elimination” of the group from Nigerian territory.

Boko Haram has repeatedly used young suicide bombers to cross the western Cameroonian border with Nigeria in the far-north region to launch attacks, killing many people, mostly unarmed civilians.